IRR sets NPV to zero
The internal rate of return is the discount rate at which the present values of entered inflows and outflows balance. It is not a forecast of an investment account's actual annual return.
IRR Calculator
Analyze irregular cash flows with exact fractional-year timing, every detected IRR root, NPV at a required return, MIRR with separate finance and reinvestment rates, simple and discounted payback, profitability index, after-tax context, Chart.js NPV profiles, sensitivity, and a discounted cash-flow ledger.
Irregular cash-flow IRR, NPV, MIRR, payback, and root diagnostics
Evaluate the cash-flow pattern without letting one percentage hide its weaknesses
Enter twelve dated-in-years inflows and outflows, then calculate every detected IRR root, NPV at a hurdle rate, MIRR with separate financing and reinvestment rates, simple and discounted payback, profitability index, inflation and tax context, NPV profile, sensitivity, and a full discounted cash-flow ledger.
Plan with context
IRR is a break-even discount rate; NPV is the value decision.
A return percentage can be useful, but it can also conceal project scale, interim financing, unrealistic reinvestment, or multiple mathematical answers. Read IRR beside NPV and the full cash-flow pattern.
Scale disappears from the percentage
A small project can show a higher IRR while creating less dollar value than a larger project. NPV at the organization's opportunity cost keeps the scale of value visible.
Sign changes can create multiple roots
When cash flow changes direction more than once, the NPV equation can cross zero several times or not at all. A single software answer may therefore be incomplete or economically ambiguous.
MIRR makes reinvestment explicit
Modified IRR finances negative cash flows at one rate and compounds positive cash flows at another. It avoids some IRR reinvestment problems, but remains assumption-dependent.
NPV should lead mutually exclusive choices
For projects that compete for the same capital, differ in life, or have different timing, NPV at a defensible hurdle rate generally gives the clearer value ranking.
Payback measures recovery, not value
Simple payback ignores discounting and cash flows after recovery. Discounted payback improves timing treatment but still omits later benefits and should remain a liquidity diagnostic.
Included
Twelve editable positive and negative cash flows, fractional-year timing, root scanning from near −100% through 1,000%, every detected sign-changing IRR, NPV at a hurdle rate, MIRR with separate financing and reinvestment rates, nominal and discounted payback, profitability index, after-tax NPV, inflation-adjusted hurdle context, positive-cash-flow sensitivity, Chart.js cash-flow and NPV-profile visuals, and a full discounted ledger.
Not included
Calendar dates or XIRR day counts, roots that merely touch zero without crossing, complex-number solutions, stochastic outcomes, probability-weighted scenarios, option value, capital rationing optimization, mutually exclusive replacement chains, tax depreciation, loss offsets, working-capital detail, financing side effects, terminal-value validation, currency conversion, or independent forecast verification.
Use it well
Enter incremental after-tax operating cash flows and terminal proceeds at their actual expected times, keep financing decisions separate unless the method requires them, use a risk-consistent hurdle rate, inspect every root and the NPV profile, test downside cases, and validate the terminal value before committing capital.